


First Watch

by singingwithoutwords



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Doc is a Good Guy, Gen, Identity Issues, Introspection, Season/Series 08, Wash Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-28
Updated: 2013-12-28
Packaged: 2018-01-06 12:52:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1107054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singingwithoutwords/pseuds/singingwithoutwords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>"Do you know who I am inside this armor?"<br/>“Can't say I do, no.”<br/>“Neither do I.”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Wash reflects on who and what he's become.</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Watch

**Author's Note:**

> This is introspection that briefly tried to become romance-y before turning back into introspection again.
> 
> Takes place at some point during Revelation while Wash is holding Doc prisoner.

It doesn't take long to start thinking of the helmet as the face, to forget there's a person inside the suit. You identify the people around you by the markings on their armor, because that's all they show you. It's not as if you're _unaware_ that you're working with human beings here, it just becomes an unimportant detail that can be safely overlooked.

And when someone takes their helmet off and shows you the person inside, it always comes as a shock.

Medical Officer DuFresne was... more of a shock than most. For one, he seemed to be immune to helmet hair. I'd never known anyone, man or woman, who could wear armor for more than an hour or two and _not_ come out of it with a severe case of helmet hair that took forever to tame, but DuFresne's hair chose to defy all laws of reality and convention by staying right where it damned well wanted to be.

His eyes were clear and bright, and he was smiling. That was the biggest shock, I think, that the man I'd kidnapped, dragged into the desert, beaten, and threatened to torture and kill was smiling. At me. I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen someone smile. To be honest, I think I'd forgotten what a smile really looked like at that point, and it took me a second to recognize what it was and what it might mean.

“There,” he said, setting his helmet aside. “That's much better. It gets so stuffy in there sometimes.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath of the rapidly cooling desert air. “Unfiltered air is good for you, Wash- you should try it. Very calming.”

“I'm plenty calm,” I snapped, fully aware the tone sort of undermined the statement, but DuFresne just shrugged.

“Suit yourself,” he said, fiddling with his left elbow until the entire gauntlet slipped off.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Taking off my armor,” he said, as if taking off his only means of defense while being held prisoner by two hostiles was something that made sense to him. “You said we're staying here for the night, so I might as well take advantage of it.”

He removed his right gauntlet, then the upper arm casings, then twisted one hand up behind his back and managed to brush the releases on his shoulders. And I didn't stop him because I was too busy staring at his hands to really care about what he was doing with them.

You would have stared, too, because _damn_. Those hands were about as perfect as humanly possible, elegant and long-fingered with narrow palms, smooth skin, and manicured nails. Hands that belonged to an artist or a mother, not an army medic.

He kept smiling obliviously as he removed the chestplate, and yeah- staring there, too. The armor's pretty bulky stuff, and it can do a lot to hide body type at a glance, but if I'd seen DuFresne without the armor first, I would have bet money he'd never be able to stand up in the stuff. He was _thin_ , in a way that made him look fragile and breakable in just the skin-tight black undersuit, but he was obviously strong enough to set aside the chestplate without dropping it and without much visible effort.

He stripped his leg armor from the top down (starting with the codpiece, God help me), one leg at a time, and he did it without once bending his knees. The man was flexible. Insanely so. He had no problem bending himself in half and working the finicky catches on his boots, when most people needed to sit down and let someone else get the damn things off.

Once there wasn't a scrap of purple metal left on him, he rolled what looked like every joint in his body and dropped to the sand in a position that made my legs ache just to look at.

“How the _hell_ can you bend like that?” Was _not_ what I intended to say, but it was the thought uppermost in my mind by that point.

“Yoga,” DuFresne said, smiling up at me. “Since I was nine. Want me to teach you?”

He meant it. He was being completely sincere. Without the helmet to hide behind, his face was achingly honest, open and easily read. No deceit, no cunning.

I looked away. Away from DuFresne and his kindness, over the moonlit sand, to Maine. Meta. Who or what the fuck ever I was supposed to call him today. The empty shell of an old friend was easier to handle. The cruelty that had destroyed him was easier to accept.

“Wash?”

I debated ignoring him, just not for very long. He was a good man, no matter how shit a medic, and there really wasn't a reason to punish him. “What?”

“It's okay to relax, you know. I won't tell anybody if you don't.”

I... smiled. I smiled a genuine smile, a small one that wasn't bitter or mocking or outright fake, and I was almost sorry he couldn't see it.

“I'm not taking off my armor.”

“Just your helmet?” he pressed, leaning forward over his crossed legs.

“No.”

“Why not?”

I thought about shooting him. We didn't really _need_ him. He was honestly more of a hindrance than a help. The Meta would probably approve. No one would call me out on it, just another casualty of war. A pacifist who genuinely just wanted to help, who was probably doomed, anyway, because the world didn't work the way he wanted it to. I could even argue it as a mercy kill if I tried hard enough.

But I would still know it was murder.

“Do you know who I am inside this armor?” I asked him instead, still staring hard at the dull white gleam of the Meta not far away.

“Can't say I do, no.”

“Neither do I.”

DuFresne was a person inside his armor. He had an identity of his own, an existence beyond the role he played. I didn't. I might have, once, a long time ago, but that man was gone, swallowed up by Project Freelancer and Epsilon and the lies my world had once depended on. There was no David anymore, just the bitter ghost of him that was Agent Washington.

I couldn't strip myself of my armor, set aside the face my helmet had become, because there was nothing behind it. The sum of who and what I was rested at the surface, a shallow facsimile of a human being. The face behind my visor wasn't me anymore.

“Don't you want to find out? Who you are, I mean?”

“No.”

The sand hissed and slithered as DuFresne shifted, climbing to his feet. He was noticeably shorter without the armor to boost him up, and he should have looked weak in front of me, with his lithe body and graceful hands. He should have been afraid.

Instead he reached up boldly, fingertips brushing against my helmet, about where my jaw would be. “I'd like to know.”

We stood there I don't know how long, facing each other in the chilly night air, his hand on my helmet, like one of those old paintings contrasting man and machine people used to love.

Gradually, after what felt like an eternity, I registered he was shivering. The later it got, the more the temperature dropped, and without the armor there was nothing to protect him from the biting desert winds. Very, very gently, mindful of my strength and his vulnerability, I pushed him away.

“Put your armor back on, Doc,” I told him, turning my back on him. “We don't need you getting sick.”

He didn't say anything more, just dusted off the sand and slowly replaced his suit piece by piece. He then quietly wished me good night and found a place to settle down to sleep.

The Meta caught my eye, and the static hiss and growl that was his only means of communicating without an AI flowed through the comm. He was unrecognizable now, a pale imitation just like I was, but there was enough of Maine left in him that I could tell without words exactly what he was thinking. And he knew me well enough to know what my answer would be.

“I'll take first watch- you get some sleep.”

An acknowledging growl was my only answer, and in moments it was just me, the moon, the wind, and questions I was afraid to examine too closely.

Second watch couldn't come soon enough for me.

**Author's Note:**

> I know it's weird don't look at me like that.


End file.
